


Business Casual

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Kazakhstan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a business meeting. This is a party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Business Casual

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All things Harry Potter belong to JKR. All things Kazakh belong to the people of Kazakhstan. For [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/shocolate/profile)[**shocolate**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/shocolate/), who gave me the prompt "Ron and vodka."

_Emerging markets, my arse,_ Ron thought as the next plate of meat came out. _All the market share in the world isn't worth this._

Okay, so it has sounded like a good idea. George wanted to try marketing Weasley's Wizard Wheezes outside of Britain. He made it sound like such an easy thing. "No native competition," he'd said. "Plenty of opportunity for growth. And I hear they're friendly."

"Where is this again?" Ron has asked.

George had muttered something.

"Didn't catch that."

"Kazakhstan?"

"Which is where, precisely?"

"Sort of…er…between Russia and China. A bit."

"Thought that was Mongolia."

"Well, that too."

Ron didn't know about Russia or China at the moment, but he was pinned between a short, fat man with a bushy silver moustache and his translator, a wizard named Yerkin who had lost the capacity to properly translate anything a few toasts ago. Yerkin was also short, and he also had a moustache, but his was solid black and couldn't exactly be called "bushy" by any extension of the term. In fact, "patchy" or even "peach fuzz" might be more accurate. But Yerkin spoke English, at least for certain definitions of "English," which was better than anyone else at the party. Especially since Ron didn't think the popping, growling syllables they were speaking to one another were even a real language.

And it was a party, even though he'd been told it was a business meeting. Business meetings don't involve everyone showing up in velvet dress robes with gaudy felt appliqués. They don't involve Ron being gifted with a matching set of those robes, deep green with golden curlicues crawling along most of its length, though they were rather significantly short in the sleeve and ankle. Because there was one person in the room who approached Ron's height, and that was one of the silent witches who kept bringing them more food, more food than Ron thought anyone could eat in a lifetime. There were about a dozen wizards sitting on velvet rugs around a low table, and witches with giant feathered plumes sticking out of their hats kept disappearing behind a tapestry and reappearing with another plate or bowl of bottle of vodka.

The man with the silver moustache struggled to his feet, reminding Ron, yet again, of the vodka.

Because business meetings don't usually involve this much food, and in Ron's experience, they certainly don't involve this much vodka. He'd been all right with the tea, even if they served it in little bowls and he dropped his on the first try. But then the vodka had come out, and shot glasses much larger than he was used to, and Yerkin had explained—when he could still explain things reasonably well—"It is toast. We say a toast to our honored guest!" And he'd slapped Ron on the back.

That had been several hours ago. Also several bottles of vodka.

When Ron had asked, five toasts in, why there were so many, Yerkin had looked consterned for a few minutes. Then he said, "It is our custom, everyone must say a toast. And then we must…_vypit, vypit_…drink up!" He'd grinned at that. "Bottoms up, you say in England, yes?"

Eleven toasts in, apparently Ron's turn had come up, but back then he'd still been fairly ambulatory and the food hadn't been nearly as frightening—just dried fruit, some tasteless cookies, some really amazing sweets and little pieces of fried bread that he was not going to call by the name Yerkin called it, because he's pretty sure Yerkin called it _ballsack._ Ron had stood up, and raised his glass, and said, "Er, well…to our future partnership! May it be, er, mutually profitable and…and pleasant for both our firms!"

Yerkin had blinked at him. "That is all?"

"Isn't that enough?" Because yeah, the other guys had talked for a good five or ten minutes each, but Yerkin had stopped trying to translate everything they said, so Ron had thought most of it was just greetings or something.

Yerkin, though, thought long about Ron's toast, then said, "I will translate." And fifteen minutes later, they finally _vypited._

Speaking of which, the man with the moustache was wrapping up his third or fourth toast of the night, and the next tray of meat—thick slices of sausage that were half white with lard on one side, half dark with unidentified meat on the other—came around. Ron had tried to ask what each dish was, but Yerkin just said, "Meat. Meat and noodles. Dough and meat."

And when Ron asked, "What sort of meat?" while poking the slimy pile of noodles and meat chunks Yerkin had scooped onto his plate, Yerkin had looked thoughtful again.

And then he said, "I think that in English you call it 'horseflesh,' yes? It is our national dish!"

So Ron wasn't asking anymore.

And Silver Moustache, whose name had more syllables than Ron was comfortable with outside of incantations, finally raised his glass. Ron looked into his glass, then looked at the most recent bottle of vodka. The label was all pointy Cyrillic, but the picture was a dyspeptic-looking leopard with some rather improbable wings fanning out behind it. He guessed it was probably the national vodka as well. He managed to get the glass to his mouth, and decided it was time to cut back to half-shots.

But Yerkin was looking scandalized. "What you do? What you do?" he asked. "Vypit, vypit! You must!"

"I've had a bit much tonight," Ron tried to say.

"But is it very rude! Turganbek Djaichimbekovich is host! You must!" Yerkin said, and pushed Ron's glass back in his face, slopping vodka on his new short robes. "Bottom up!"

The other eleven wizards must've been shouting encouragement, thought to Ron's ears it sounded like they were in a gargling competition. He took a deep breath, and managed to get the rest of the shot down, to wild applause.

When the witches came out again, with bowls of little white spheres on their trays, Ron tried to ask Yerkin, "Can you ask them for a glass of water for me or something?"

"Why do you want water?" Yerkin demanded. Or maybe that was just how he asked questions.

_Because this hangover may well be the death of me,_ Ron thought, but he said, "I think I've had a bit too much to drink tonight."

Yerkin thought about this again. "I will ask them," he finally said, then turned around and shouted across the room at the last witch filing away. _"DEVUCHKA! Idyi syuda!"_

And now everyone was looking at Ron again. Ron smiled, and tried to eat his lard sausage without wondering if this had also, in life, been called Dobbin.

But nobody brought him water. There were two more toasts, and Yerkin tricked him into eating the white spheres by saying they were the national candy, when in fact they were made of chalk (salty chalk, even), and when the witches in the plumed hats came out again (the tall one was probably giving the ceilings a thorough cleaning, he thought) they had more of the little bowls. _Tea,_ Ron thought hopefully, _is almost as good as water._

But the bowls did not contain tea. The bowls contained something thick and white and Yerkin's had a little yellow curd floating on the surface. "Is this milk?" Ron asked.

Yerkin nodded, and drank deeply of it. "Yes, yes, drink up! It is our national beverage!"

Ron started to take a sip.

"Milk of the camel, it is, how do you say it, it is like beer!"

Ron, manfully, did not spit.

That sip went down like custard and vinegar and curdled on impact with all the vodka already in his stomach. Eleven businessmen pointed and laughed at the look on his face, which he imagined combined elements of both horror and profound disgust. That included Yerkin, which Ron did not think was quite on. Not that Yerkin had been particularly helpful all night, but it was the principle of the thing.

"You do not like?" Yerkin asked when he was done laughing.

"It's…different," Ron managed to say. He wanted to ask the proof value but, as with the meat, he decided he didn't really want to know. "Look, Yerkin, I'm starting to feel a bit sick, I think I'd like to go back to the hotel now—"

Yerkin looked horrified. "But it is very rude! You must not leave before final course! You are guest of honored!"

"I know that, but—"

"Look, look, it comes!"

Yerkin pointed at the witches, who were engaging in a pretty fancy bit of coordinated magic to levitate a tray in. On the tray was meat. Ron didn't have to ask what kind of meat, because it was clearly a sheep, and it was clear because it was still entirely intact. Meaning hooves. Meaning eyeballs. The camel milk and the vodka set up a scuffle somewhere in his gastrointestinal tract.

The witches banished everything but the chalk balls and the camel milk and put the sheep in the center. Silver Mustachovich got up and started talking some more. Ron feared it was another toast, meaning he'd have to drink more camel milk, which would likely further antagonize the vodka, which would kill him. But Yerkin started to translate in a slurred voice. "Turganbek Djaichimbekovich says, he says you are honored guest in our country, and welcome to you, and we will do many great together, because you are great man…and you must have wisdom, and strength, and many, many children…and so you will receive the most honored part of the, the animal."

Ron, for his part, liked to think he had strength; he knew he had courage; and he had children, though he'd need to talk to Hermione about the "many many" part.

And, courtesy of a short man in a silver moustache, he also had the entire roasted head of a sheep.

"I…" he looked at Yerkin, hoping for some sign of compassion, or at least the punchline of the joke. "I…this…"

"Eat, eat!" Yerkin said. "You are guest of honor!"

"Is it rude if I don't eat?"

"Yes!"

Ron looked at the sheep's head.

The sheep looked back.

"Yerkin, tell them I'm sorry for my rudeness," Ron said, just before he threw up.

**Author's Note:**

> (A Kazakh glossary:  
> lard sausage = kazyr (it is horse)  
> "national dish" = beshbarmak (can be beef or horse)  
> "ballsack" = baurysaq  
> salty chalk balls = kurt  
> fermented camel's milk = kymyz
> 
> "Devuchka, idyi syuda!" = Girl, come here! [Russian]  
> vypit = to drink up, drink completely [Russian]
> 
> Kazakhstan is between Russia and China, diagonal to Mongolia. Kazakhstanis are indeed very friendly, and they will inflict multi-course meals and occasionally concerts on their honored guests. I have eaten everything mentioned in this story except for the sheep's head, and it's not as bad as presented here. Except the kurt, which is exactly as bad as it I present it here, and the flying leopard vodka, which to my knowledge does not actually exist. I have had Caring Bear vodka, though, and it's not bad considering the bottle cost a dollar.
> 
> No horses were harmed in the production of this fanfic.)


End file.
